U.S. to rejoin controversial U.N. human rights panel

[sabra]

Source: CNN

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) — The United States is gratified to rejoin the much-criticized U.N. Human Rights Council, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice said Tuesday.

“We ran for the Human Rights Council because this administration and, indeed, the American people are deeply committed to upholding and respecting the human rights of every individual,” Rice said after a secret ballot by the U.N. General Assembly which cleared the way for U.S. membership to the council.

“While we recognize that the Human Rights Council has been a flawed body that has not lived up to its potential, we are looking forward to working from within with a broad cross-section of member states to strengthen and reform the Human Rights Council and enable it to live up to the vision that was crafted when it was created.”

It marks a change in U.S. policy by the Obama administration to join the panel, which includes China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia as member states. Twenty-six out of the council’s 32 resolutions have condemned Israel, a key U.S. ally.

Read more: http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/05/12/u-s-to-rejoin-controversial-u-n-human-rights-panel/

[Metta]

1. Ah, more empty photo opping from the softer side of the New American Century. Will we condemn abuse

Somehow, I'd be surprised if we did anything more than talk about it and shake our finger. I'm sure it wouldn't even rise to the level of threatening in this body.

When will people learn that keeping the seas calm only forces conflicts to come out in other ways. In myriad loyalties, opposition, saboutage, defiance, denial.



edited to expand the thought.

[ProgressIn2008]

7. It's the new M.O. The empty rhetoric and the blatant disregard. nt

[Metta]

9. Like a bowl of rose blossoms and dead bees.

Yup, you're on the money. So many disappointments so far.

[Solly Mack]

2. speaking of a "flawed body that has not lived up to its potential"

Has anyone seen the show "Live with America's Favorite War Criminals"? Sure you have - it's carried by all the major news stations.

Committed to human rights...just not exactly committed to prosecuting those who abuse humans.

[Soylent Brice]

3. "Live with America's Favorite War Criminals"?

:toast:

no shit. tell it like it is.

[Solly Mack]

4. They can be seen everywhere...just not where they should be

- in prison.

[Soylent Brice]

5. i liken the ability to see war criminals on television living freely

to actually living through an episode of the Twilight Zone. at times, while watching TV, i find myself asking myself "why the fuck are they not in jail yet??". in the span of an hour i'll find myself asking this question at least 5 times.

surreal.

[Solly Mack]

6. It really is surreal. America, going about its merry way...with war criminals

paraded all over the news...being treated as legitimate sources of news and information. Experts, even.

Then they go home and go about their lives - free.

I get the feeling that someone somewhere (in America) is hoping the world is watching and thinking, "America is doing something because they are having a dialogue about torture"

A very delusional someone somehwere...but I get the feeling such a person exist. (and more than one)

[Soylent Brice]

10. you know, they were right. 9/11 DID change everything.

it made everyone a bunch of scaredy cats. "take my freedom, catch the boogey man".

boogey man never gets caught, turns out that we in turn killed thousands, fuck - hundreds of thousands - in a war that didn't even involve the people that attacked us. oh yeah, and BTW - some soldiers, yeah... well, they raped your sons too, and we might have "enhancedly interrogated" a few other too.

and back here in TV land, in zombie world, amurikans kneel and worship at their televisions to the very same fuckers who are responsible.

:crazy:

i think you're right, that very delusional someone is out there, and that someone is accompanied by a couple hundred million more, and they're all feeling really fucking complicit right about now. these people that cheered for war against Iraq, i'm sure they're feeling just a little bit of guilt about all the torture that took place. that's why hardly anything at all has been done about it.

fuck, some people are probably glad to hear that we tortured.


FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:argh:

just thinking about this shit makes me furious.

[ProgressIn2008]

8. 108 recs in GD: "Hersh: Children sodomized at Abu Ghraib, on tape"

I do believe someone should send that link to Susan Rice.

OTOH, she'd just ignore it.

[kpete]

11. U.S. Elected To U.N. Human Rights Council

Source: ACLU

U.S. Elected To U.N. Human Rights Council (5/12/2009)

ACLU Calls On Administration To Use Position To Reaffirm U.S. Commitment To Human Rights At Home And Abroad

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: [phone]; [e-mail]

NEW YORK – The United States was today elected to a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council for the first time. The American Civil Liberties Union welcomed the new administration's decision to join the Council, which has been shunned by the Bush administration.

The following can be attributed to Jamil Dakwar, Director of the ACLU Human Rights Program:

"While the new administration has yet to address several key human rights issues facing this country, we are pleased that the U.S. will have a seat at the table of the top U.N. human rights body. This is a promising step toward affirming our commitment to human rights not only abroad, but also at home. By restoring and protecting human rights in this country, America will once again become a nation that leads by example. From this position, we are hopeful the Obama administration will honor and expand its human rights commitments and fully incorporate human rights into U.S. domestic policy. U.S. credibility abroad will be judged by our concrete actions to protect and promote human rights in our own backyard."

Read more: http://www.aclu.org/intlhumanrights/gen/39575prs20090512.html

[Behind the Aegis]

12. Hopefully they will able to clean up that joke of a council.

[rpannier]

13. Good luck reforming that group

Most of the seats seem to go to countries run by dictators that violate human rights with the same ease that we all breath

[inwiththenew]

14. Good luck

This is like a business ethics committee with Citi Group, Countrywide and AIG on it.

[No Elephants]

15. Caring about human rights means obeying domestic and international law on prosecuting torture and

it also means giving equal rights to all humans.


"From this position, we are hopeful the Obama administration will honor and expand its human rights commitments and fully incorporate human rights into U.S. domestic policy. U.S. credibility abroad will be judged by our concrete actions to protect and promote human rights in our own backyard."


So will Obama's credibility within the US.

[AlphaCentauri]

16. U.S. elected to U.N. rights council for first time

Source: reuters

The United States won election to the U.N. Human Rights Council for the first time on Tuesday, joining 17 other nations picked for the body, after the Obama administration ended a U.S. policy of boycotting it.

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said Washington still believed the body was flawed, but added: "We are looking forward to working from within with a broad cross-section of member states to strengthen and reform the Human Rights Council."

The United States was one of 18 countries elected or reelected to three-year terms on the 47-seat Geneva-based council in a vote by the U.N. General Assembly, joining 29 others who are in mid-term.

Some nations that have faced criticism for their own human rights records, including China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia, were among those elected on Tuesday.



Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/usPoliticsNews/idUKTRE54B4NA20090513

[earcandle]

17. well its not perfect but it is starting to take form.

[BlueMTexpat]

18. Working from within is the common sense approach ...

but among the current blots on our own human rights record are Gitmo, the black prisons to which we have had prisoners renditioned and our failure to hold accountable those who formulated and approved torture.

So yes, we'd better also work on getting our own house clean at the same time. We certainly can do more than one thing at a time.

[DissedByBush]

21. It's still useless

We will be there to give the dissenting vote from a body stocked with some of the worst human rights abusers in the world, with an anti-Israel agenda. It's run by a couple blocs, and nothing will make them be effective with that scheme.

Israel is the only country they review at every session. Not China, not Cuba, not Saudi Arabia, not Sudan, not Myanmar, not North Korea. Israel. During the Israel Lebanon war they only investigated Israel and refused to look at the atrocities committed by Hezbollah. Even the last two secretary generals aren't happy with this.

The Council is even being used to stop criticism of violent Islam.

[ronnie624]

19. So much irony.

It's almost embarrassing. This article drips with hypocrisy; everybody pointing fingers at everybody else.

And Americans, with their bizarre concept of human rights. They never think of it in terms of how they treat other people in the world. All that matters to them, it seems, is how they themselves are treated by their own system, but we are just recently responsible for the total destruction of civil society in another country, and the deaths of perhaps as many as a million people. If that isn't a civil rights issue, then we truly live in Bizarro world.

[pleah]

20. Yep.